Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960508102336.5261D-100000@fox.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 10:28:41 -0500 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.KSU.EDU> Subject: Re: Computers to Africa To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
[my apologies for the markup]Text of story by Ellis Henican published in New York [sic] Newsday, Sunday May 5, 1996
HUNGERING TO HELP<br> <p> "There are certain foods I really love," the reverend was saying. "I'm<br> waiting to get back to broiled salmon filet. That's one of my specialties.<br> I'm waiting to get back to chicken livers, which I cook two or three<br> different ways. I have friends who make wonderful muffins."<br> <p> The reverend's name is Lucius Walker. His church, in Fort Greene,<br> Brooklyn, is called Salvation Baptist. He is 65 years old. You'll have<br> to forgive the reverend his mouth-watering recollections. It's been a<br> while since the man has had a decent meal.<br> <p> Seventy-five days, to be exact.<br> <p> Since the morning of Feb. 21, Rev. Walker has consumed nothing but water<br> spiked with lemon juice and maple syrup. He's already down 42 pounds.<br> <p> "My wife make wonderful lasagna," he was saying a bit wistfully late last<br> week.<br> <p> He is joined on this marathon hunger strike by three other volunteers<br> from an outfit called Pastors for Peace, which is in the business of<br> running aid caravans to troubled corners of Latin America. A "fast for<br> life," he calls the past 75 days. And the fast does not seem to be on<br> the verge of ending. The United States government can be a stubborn<br> adversary in cases like this.<br> <p> The issue here is medical computers for Cuba, where the long U.S. trade<br> embargo has recently been tightened again.<br> <p> It's one thing to try to drive a bearded pirate out of power, the<br> justification for the three-plus decades of Cuban policy. It is quite<br> another, Walker and his church friends believe, to sacrifice the health<br> of who-knows-how-many innocent Cuban citizens along the way.<br> <p> Last year, the United Nations and the Pan American Health Organization<br> delivered a big medical computer to Havana. The computer was designed<br> to send crucial health data to the island's rural clinics and hospitals. But<br> the big computer wasn't doing much good. The reason? Cuba had so few<br> receiver-computers in the countryside.<br> <p> The people there were dying as much from ignorance as from disease. Back<br> in America, the Pastors for Peace figured this deserved a response.<br> <p> So around Christmas, Walker launched a campaign to collect cast-off<br> computers. Hundreds of them were rounded up in no time. These were<br> mostly 286's and XT's, the kind of machines American children [and Africans] sneer at these days.<br> <p> The computers were adjusted to accept medical data. They were loaded<br> into trucks. Volunteers drove the trucks toward the Mexican border. A<br> cargo plane was waiting on the other side, in Tiajuana, to fly the<br> machines to Cuba.<br> <p> "It seemed like a beautiful idea," Walker said. "Talk about a thousand<br> points of light. That's it. Can't you just see a thousand of these<br> things, scattered around the poor rural areas, helping to save people's<br> lives? What could be better than that?"<br> <p> The computers never reached the cargo plane.<br> <p> On Jan 31, Walker and his church friends were met at the border by a<br> giant phalanx of U.S. federal agents. The FBI. Treasury. Customs.<br> Immigration. Enough feds to ward off a full-scale invasion. Making<br> good and sure not a single medical computer reached Cuban soil. The<br> agents took 17 of the church workers into custody and turned the caravan<br> back. They also confiscated all the used computers.<br> <p> Eight days later, a federal subpoena was served on the Harlem<br> headquarters of the parent group of Pastors for Peace, the<br> Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization. The subpoena<br> demanded all document concerning the groups's Cuban efforts over the past<br> two years.<br> <p> On Feb. 17, the church volunteers tried to leave the United States with a<br> second load of medical computers, this time from California and Vermont.<br> Again, they were turned back at the border. Again, the medical computers<br> were seized.<br> <p> In the days that followed, Walker and his friends made repeated pleas to<br> the U.S. government: Release the computers. Let the caravans through.<br> The government didn't budge.<br> <p> So the "fast for life" began Feb 21 near the border crossing at San<br> Diego. On April 3, the four fasters moved to Washington, D.C.<br> <p> All four of them were looking gaunt last week. All four said they were<br> feeling weak. Their doctor, David Levinson, was speaking in nervous-<br> sounding tones. "They don't have any more body fat to lose," he said.<br> <p> The fasters are holed up now at a Methodist Church center a few blocks<br> from the White House. Against his doctor's advice, Walker flew home to<br> New York on Wednesday night to officiate at the funeral of a church<br> member. "Pastor's have to do what pastors have to do," he said.<br> <p> Thursday morning, he was back in Washington for an event on the Capitol<br> steps. So far, nearly 60 congressmen, led by Harlem Rep. Charles<br> Rangel, have voiced support of some sort.<br> <p> But how much longer can Walker and his friends go without eating, the<br> minister was asked.<br> <p> "Until the computers are released," he said.<br> <p> Won't he come to regret that vow?<br> <p> "I haven't regretted it yet," he said.<br> <p> "I think we're going to end up with at least a double victory," he said.<br> "We will ultimately send those computers to Cuba. I am convinced of that.<br> At the same time, we will forge a new coalition that has never existed<br> before, improving relations with Cuba, finally ending the blockade."<br> <p> And if not?<br> <p> "I'm 65," the reverend said, his voice finally trailing off. "I simply<br> don't want to live any longer in a country that continues to hurt people<br> the way my country does."